Elementals
by WebsofEris
Summary: Kili has never been made of stone. He is as malleable and adapting as the mud and dirt of the earth. Tauriel has never felt the call to the sea. The storm that grows and rages inside her is not a wave but a gale.


They say that when Mahal fashioned the dwarrows he created them from stone. Fixtures in the earth that grew tall and steep; that chipped and fell. Rocks that slammed into the ground with such force the echoes could be heard for miles around – the very ground beneath the impacts would shudder and ripple. Mountains that shaped and reshaped the forests and hills and rivers that surrounded them.

Dwarves are strong and hard. Unyielding. They are slow to change themselves yet quick and passionate about shaping that which they can discover around them. Mines and mountains, jewels and gold. They are drawn to their craft like the mountains are draw to landscaping the earth around them.

Kili has never felt like stone. He is quick to forgive and quick to change. He is clay – malleable and bending – the craft that is easily shaped, not born of hard effort. Not created from sweat and blood and passion. He was born under a thatched human roof with the smell of mud and grass filling his mother's nostrils as she bore him. He grew up on roads between villages of thatched houses, mud-brick stones, wood-smoked fires; fields and pastures and brown as far as the eye could see.

Kili is like mud. Soft but useful – and hard to remove when it dries and sticks. Refuses to let go.

All his life Kili has held on to his brother, his uncle, his mother. He holds them to him like the mud that forms the bricks of the human built huts he grew up in. He fills in the cracks that form between them with hope and loyalty and need. He smiles and he laughs and he adapts to those around him – though he prefers the feel of the wooden bow in his hand and the kiss of the arrow he will grip the steel of a sword in his hand and train as a _zagarûn_. Though he wants to roam and run and slide from place to place like mud will slide in the rain he will fight for his mountain home that grips the earth like iron; for his family's legacy and his brother's birthright.

Kili is not _'aban_ but he cannot be _ikminshulk._

* * *

The elves long for the sea. Their ancestors have sailed across its waves to Arda and back. They have smelled the salt in the air, heard the cries of the gulls that flew past their ships and basked in the sea breeze. The sea – like the vast forest woodlands of the Greenwood – is a canvas of colors. Green hues reflecting off the waves, the dark depths of blues in the deep, the red on the horizon. It is vast and expanding; limited and confined. The seasons are ever predictable – the leaves will fall as the cold winds howl through the trees, the bright green will fade to brown and the flowers will crumble. Spring shall burst forth like waves and wash across the woods to bring it life.

Tauriel is a wood elf. She has ever dwelled within the confines of the Greenwood, comforted by the floral scent of its abundant plants and earthy musk of its trees and dirt. Her hair has reflected the light from the sun, moon, and stars through the breaks in the canopies of leaves. She has thrilled in the drench of rain that poured from the skies and off of the leaves to tap at her skin and make every braid and strand of hair feel heavy upon her head.

Tauriel has never felt a call to the sea.

Tauriel grows and roams from one edge of the Greenwood to the other – centuries of green. Her anger grows as she watches the colors fade – the green leaves becoming gray, the sun light that use to stream through the trees clouded and dark. She fights and battles the encroaching darkness like the plants that grow from their tiny roots in the dirt, the trees that struggle to stay vibrant. She fights with the grace of the whispers of the leaves.

The storm builds inside her with every new tree that dies and with every flower that fades. With every spider that nests and spawns. There is a howling that sounds inside her, screaming to get out. To fight. To sweep away evil from the Greenwood – not Mirkwood, never Mirkwood – and follow it to every dusty corner of Arda: Lothlorien, Imladris, the plains of Rohan and Gondor, and the mountain valleys she has only glimpsed through the trees.

Tauriel imagines her storm is like the crashing waves of the sea but she knows that it is of wind. Wind is grace and subtlety – passing unseen but felt with a fury when angered. The sea is chaotic and entrancing but lacking her grace. She fights with speed and accuracy; her foe never sets eyes upon her.

She slips out of the Greenwood in an instance – following the wind upon the river and the call of flowers, woods, and dirt.

Elves long to sail across the _aear _but Tauriel has chosen to fly like an _alagos_ upon the earth.

* * *

The mountains are ancient. The sea is so old that the water is reincarnated from droplets that had fused it together millions of times before. The forest and the earth and the wind are new and old; eternal and fading. Arda is old but continuous – through the darkness, through the light.

Tauriel has never felt sand beneath her feet or smelled salt on the air. Her senses are clouded with the metallic tang of blood and dirt mixed together into a mockery of life-giving mud. The wound stings, blood pouring out like smoke escaping from a fire and flickering out as it reaches the air. Dying.

Six-hundred years is nothing in the life of an elf. She is young, so very young, and he is younger still. She reaches out despite the pain shooting through her body, to grasp his free hand. It is crusted with dirt and blood, life draining from the sun-kissed pallor of his skin. She has heard that dwarves are entombed in stone – forever solid, forever hard. She wonders if the sun has ever penetrated the halls of Erebor and cast its warm glow upon its floors and chambers. This dwarf-boy who loves the sun, who brought hope and life to her warring soul, will he be erased by the dark? Her _elanor._

Even the dark is touched by the light. Even storms are penetrated by its warmth. Lightning may strike but once upon the ground but strike it does.

The Greenwood will live on. Arda will live on. She has not fought for naught but death – life will triumph. Everything survives, and fades, and changes. Even the sea.

Kili feels tears mix with the blood and dirt on his cheeks, his voice hoarse and his throat on fire. His brother's hand is still in his grip – like a rock. Like stone. Unmoving. He is still mud – for the moment. Even mud stops. Hardens and settles. No more running.

He once read that the ancient kings of heathen men use to offer their dead flesh back to the earth by fire. Consumed and destroyed by flames. He thinks about the blackened chambers of Erebor – scorched by dragon-fire and remembers the burn of poison in his veins. Fire consumes even stone, mud was no match for it.

He grips her hand tight and thinks about red flames captured and highlighted by a silver glow. He shivers and wishes for the warmth of flames in stone – furnaces, forges, cooking flames and chimneys. He thinks of the sea, of water rushing over flames to snuff it out. He thinks of silver gems that look like moonlight, like the rivers and lakes running through mountains and forests, like starlight. He holds on to his _gimlinh_.

He dreams of silver stars falling through the sky with tails of blazing red. Racing through the vastness of an eternal, immovable, endless space and parting it like waves upon the sand and the earth. Free. Alive.

They are waiting.

* * *

Vocabulary: (* my sad attempts at Khuzdul/Sindarin)

* zagarûn (sword-man in Khuzdul)

* 'aban (stone in Khuzdul)

* ikminshulk (mud in Khuzdul)

* aear (ocean or sea in Sindarin)

* alogos (storm of wind in Sindarin)

* elanor (sun-star in Sindarin)

* gimlinh (star-lady in Khuzdul)


End file.
